Immunisation Week: thousands of Kiwi kids saved from disease

22 April 2013: While
there will always be concerns about how to improve
population health, World Immunisation Week is a good time to
note New Zealand success in saving thousands of children
from serious diseases, Dr Stewart Reid, a general
practitioner and former long-term immunisation advisor to
the Ministry of Health, said today.

“Because you don’t
actually see the benefits in a child who might otherwise
have been unwell, it’s easy to forget how many healthy
children would have been sick or dead if not for our
National Immunisation Programme,” he said.

“For
example, without measles vaccinations over the last ten
years we would have seen another 200-600 deaths and 300
cases of brain damage,” he said.1

“We are also seeing
great success with more recently introduced vaccines. For
instance, since the introduction of pneumococcal vaccination
in 2008 there has been a 97% reduction in severe diseases
such as meningitis, pneumonia and blood poisoning caused by
vaccine targets in kids younger than two years.2 New Zealand
studies are also currently assessing the impact on
debilitating childhood ear infections, where we hope to see
a significant reduction.

“Overall, national vaccination
coverage of two-year-olds has increased from around 50% in
2007 to nearly 95% in 2012; with these improvements we can
expect to see further reductions in vaccine-preventable
disease.3

“These gains are a real cause for celebration.
The overall reduction in disease will have huge benefits for
the people directly affected, families, and costs to the
broader community.”

The World Health Organization, who
organise World Immunisation Week, has found that only clean
water and antibiotics have had as big an impact on childhood
death and diseases as vaccines.4

New Zealand has seen big
gains in immunisation coverage and timeliness, expanded
funding for whooping cough and flu vaccines and growing
support for recent calls for funding of new vaccines, such
as the rotavirus vaccine.3,5–7

“New Zealand is
succeeding because of a strong national commitment to
disease prevention, the engagement of DHBs and general
practitioners in good systems for early enrolment, and the
support of parents and the public who want to ensure
children are protected,” he
said.

Dr Stewart
ReidSince 1978, Stewart has been and still is a
Lower Hutt GP who has dabbled in vaccinology since 1980. He
has been involved in advising government on vaccination
policy and has played a role in writing the NZ Immunisation
Handbook. He has also played a part in the Group B
meningococcal vaccination programme and in the licensure of
several vaccines in current and past use in
NZ.

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